V-shaped notch can be commonly seen as a profile of brittle rock failure under high stresses. The mechanism behind such occurrence is the localized rock mass post-failure behaviors indicated by rock mass strength reducing and associated stress altering nearby. The paper briefly summarizes the observations of the V-shaped notch profile and criteria established previously to predict such failure. More attentions have been paid on rock mass post-failure behaviors and the approaches to describe them. In terms o...